Mixing faith and politics -- or not

Bush, Kerry are taking different tacks with Catholic voters.

July 06, 2004|By Jeff Miller Of The Morning Call

The intersection of faith and politics is trickier to navigate this year, especially for presidential candidates seeking Catholic votes.

Sen. John Kerry is trying to become only the second Catholic -- after John Kennedy -- to win the White House. But his support for abortion rights has led some Catholic bishops to say he should be denied Communion, an important church sacrament.

President Bush, a Methodist, has pushed his "faith-based" initiative and stands with the church on abortion and opposition to human cloning research. But he also went to war in Iraq against the Vatican's wishes.

Recent polls show Catholics are split evenly between the two candidates. They also show that Catholics who say they're very religious favor Bush strongly while those who say they're not very religious are strongly for Kerry.

"Trying to cultivate that group is tricky business," said Christopher Borick, director of the Institute of Public Opinion at Muhlenberg College.

But it's important political business. Catholics are concentrated heavily in battleground states. In Pennsylvania, where 21 electoral votes are up for grabs, Catholics make up 30 percent of the population and 35 percent of the registered voters.

Republicans have made huge inroads with Catholics over the last four decades. Once solidly Democratic -- Kennedy won nearly 80 percent of the Catholic vote in 1960 -- Catholics have gone with the majority in 10 of the last 11 presidential elections.

In 2000, they narrowly went for Al Gore, who won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College. But Bush's 47 percent showing among Catholics was 10 points better than Bob Dole four years earlier.

Bush has been more direct in courting Catholics than Kerry. In fact, he's been working on it throughout his presidency.

The week after his inauguration, Bush welcomed Catholic leaders to the White House with open arms. The White House has followed up with regular meetings with conservative Catholic activists, and many of Bush's campaign trips are through heavily Catholic areas.

Bush also has met three times with Pope John Paul II, most recently in June. The pope praised Bush for his stand against abortion and his AIDS initiative, but he also criticized him for the Iraq prison-abuse scandal.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, Bush complained to a Vatican official during the visit that U.S. bishops weren't doing enough to support him in opposing gay marriage. The White House wouldn't comment on the substance of their conversation.

Last week, Lehigh Valley U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey met with Catholic voters in Pennsylvania on Bush's behalf as part of the Republican Party's Catholic Outreach program. Invitations to the events in Allentown, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Scranton stressed that Democrats and independents were welcome.

"Catholics are not a monolithic block," said Toomey, a Catholic, "but there are certainly many practicing Catholics who feel more comfortable with President Bush than John Kerry."

Kerry, by contrast, hasn't made an overt appeal to Catholics or any other denomination. But the message gets across anyway. Reporters covering his campaign frequently mention that he attends Mass regularly, as he did during a stop in Bethlehem this spring.

Kerry is a former altar boy who once considered the priesthood and sought an annulment of his first marriage when he wed Teresa Heinz, who also is Catholic.

His campaign recently hired a director of religious outreach, but Kerry seldom talks about his faith in public. On religion, Kerry tends to talk about the virtues of church-state separation and putting faith to work through good deeds.

Kerry "feels his faith is a private matter," said campaign spokeswoman Kathy Roeder. Despite that, Roeder said Kerry believes he can connect with "voters who live by their faith" by putting forth a positive agenda that addresses "the social and commonweal issues in their communities."

Kerry's reticence also may relate to the Communion controversy, which has been brewing for some time but gained steam as he racked up Democratic primary victories.

Last year, the Vatican issued a doctrinal note on the responsibilities of Catholic politicians. The note didn't mention Communion but did say Catholics were obligated to work to overturn or mitigate laws that attack human life.

"For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them," the note said.

Since then, a handful of bishops have declared that Kerry and other Catholic politicians who support legal abortion should be denied Communion unless they confess their sins and renounce the positions.

A Colorado bishop even said that Catholics who vote for politicians whose positions on abortion and other issues conflict with church teachings should not present themselves for Communion.